Verbs, Tenses & Agreement: previous-year questions

Answer: (C) can

'Can' is the modal auxiliary that expresses ability or capacity, exactly what the hint [Ability] asks for; its past form is 'could' and its near-equivalent is 'be able to'. 'Should' expresses advice or duty, 'must' expresses necessity or strong obligation, and 'don't' is the negative of the auxiliary 'do', not a modal. Quick chart of modal functions for the exam: can/could = ability, may/might = permission or possibility, must = compulsion or logical certainty, should/ought to = advice, will/would = willingness or habit, need not = absence of necessity.

Answer: (A) Could

A question beginning with 'Could you ...?' is the standard polite request form, so 'Could' matches the hint [Request]. 'Should you be more careful?' asks about advisability, 'Must you ...?' expresses compulsion or irritation, and 'Have you be ...' is ungrammatical because 'have' needs a past participle (been). The usual request modals are can, could, will and would, with 'could' and 'would' sounding more polite than 'can' and 'will'; 'may' and 'might' are used when asking permission for oneself (May I come in?).

Answer: (B) Can

"Can" is a modal auxiliary: it never works as a main verb, takes no "-s" in the third person and is followed by a bare infinitive ("She can swim"). "Look" and "take" are ordinary lexical (main) verbs. "Do" is also an auxiliary when it forms questions, negatives and emphasis ("Do you know?", "I do like it"), but it can equally be a main verb ("do your homework"), and the Commission's key accepts only "Can". Auxiliaries are of two kinds: primary (be, have, do) and modal (can, could, may, might, shall, should, will, would, must, ought to), with need, dare and used to as semi-modals.

Answer: (C) Subjunctive mood

The sentence describes an unreal or hypothetical condition ("if I could"), which is the mark of the subjunctive mood, used for wishes, suppositions and conditions contrary to fact ("If I were you...", "I wish I were rich"). The indicative mood states facts or asks about them, and the imperative mood gives commands or requests ("Go there"). English traditionally has just these three moods; "interrogative" is a type of sentence rather than a mood, though it is offered here as a distractor.

Answer: (B) Present Perfect

The structure 'have/has + past participle' (have done) marks the Present Perfect tense, used for an action completed just now or whose result still matters. Compare the other options: Present Indefinite = 'I do my duty', Past Indefinite = 'I did my duty', Past Perfect = 'I had done my duty'. Exam tip: spot the helping verb first; has/have points to Present Perfect, had to Past Perfect.

Answer: (A) painting

A gerund is the '-ing' form of a verb used as a noun; here 'painting pictures' is the object of 'like'. 'To paint' also makes a correct sentence but it is an infinitive, not a gerund, so the wording of the question rules it out. 'Painted' is the past or past-participle form and 'paint' is the base form; neither can follow 'like' here.

Answer: (B) was

When a singular subject is followed by 'with', 'along with', 'together with', 'as well as' or 'in addition to', the verb agrees with the first (real) subject. Here the subject is 'The ship' (singular) and 'with its crew' is only a parenthetical phrase, so the verb is 'was'. 'Were' and 'were getting' wrongly agree with 'crew', and 'was being lost' is an awkward continuous passive that does not suit a completed event.

Answer: (C) rewound

'Rewind' follows the irregular pattern of 'wind' (to turn or coil): wind - wound - wound, hence rewind - rewound - rewound; 'unwind - unwound' behaves the same way. 'Rewinded' and 'rewounded' are non-standard. Do not confuse this with the regular verb 'wound' (to injure): wound - wounded - wounded. Similar pattern: find - found, bind - bound, grind - ground.

Answer: (A) was sitting

An action in progress in the past that is interrupted by a shorter, completed action takes the past continuous, with the interrupting action in the simple past: 'While I was sitting ..., someone threw ...'. 'Had been sitting' (past perfect continuous) would need a duration such as 'for an hour', 'am sitting' is present tense and breaks the sequence of tenses, and 'was seated' describes a state rather than the ongoing activity. 'While' is the usual signal word for the past continuous.

Answer: (D) cry

The sentence states a general, habitual truth, so the base form "cry" is used with the plural subject "babies".

Answer: (B) took

"Last night" is a definite past-time marker, which requires the simple past tense "took".

Answer: (A) were

"Jury" is a collective noun. When the members of the group are acting or thinking as separate individuals — as implied by "divided in their opinion" — British-style usage treats it as plural and takes the plural verb "were", rather than the singular "was" used when the jury acts as one unit.

Answer: (C) had met

The sentence implies an action completed before some other past point of reference (implicit in "before"), which calls for the past perfect "had met" rather than the present perfect "have met" or simple past "met".

Answer: (A) have known

An action or state that began in the past and continues up to the present ("for a long time") is expressed with the present perfect "have known"; "had know" is not even grammatically valid (should be "had known").

Answer: (C) They discussed the matter.

"Discuss" is a transitive verb in English and directly takes an object — it does not take the preposition "about" (unlike its noun form "a discussion about"). Removing "about" gives the grammatically correct sentence.

Answer: (B) We went to the movies last night.

"Last night" is a definite point in the past, which requires the simple past tense "went". The past perfect "had gone" is only correct when describing an action completed before another past action or time — no such second past reference exists here.

Answer: (C) may

In all probability' (= very probably) collocates naturally with 'will' in standard English ('In all probability it will rain'), so option (A) is the best. 'May' expresses possibility, 'Can' shows ability or general possibility, and 'ought' needs 'to' after it (ought to rain), so both are ruled out. 'Will' expresses a definite prediction; note that in everyday English 'in all probability it will rain' is also very common, so learn this as the answer chosen by the key.

Answer: (A) entered

'Had better' gives strong advice or a warning and is followed by the bare infinitive: 'She had better enter the room', negative 'had better not enter'. All four options here are past forms, so the item is flawed as set. The key takes 'entered' because 'enter' is the only verb of the four that takes 'the room' directly as its object (one requests or calls a person, and moves a thing).

Answer: (B) Excited

'Excited' is a past participle used as an adjective, and 'Excited about dinner' is a participial phrase describing John and giving the reason for his running. 'Having finished' is a perfect participle but does not go with 'about dinner'; 'Had been excited' is a finite verb (past perfect), not a participle; 'Hungry' is a plain adjective. Types to remember: present participle (running), past participle (excited, broken), perfect participle (having finished).

Answer: (B) To err

'To err is human; to forgive, divine' is a famous line from Alexander Pope's 'An Essay on Criticism' (1711); it means that making mistakes is natural to human beings. Grammatically, the infinitive 'To err' works as a noun and is the subject of the sentence. 'Err' means to make a mistake (noun: error; adjective: erroneous).